warnerbrosfandomcom-20200224-history
Quest for Camelot
Quest for Camelot (released in the United Kingdom as The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animated musical fantasy film from Warner Bros. Animation, directed by Frederik Du Chau, written by Kirk De Micco, William Schifrin, Jacqueline Feather and David Seidler and based on the novel The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman, it stars Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Jane Seymour, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Pierce Brosnan, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne and John Gielgud, with the singing voices of Céline Dion, Bryan White, Steve Perry and Andrea Corr. The film was released on May 15, 1998 by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment to help Warner Bros. celebrate "75 Years Entertaining the World". This was filmed in 1997. Plot Young Kayley (Sarah Freeman) and her mother Julianna (Jane Seymour) see her father Lionel (Gabriel Byrne) off to Camelot for a meeting with King Arthur (Pierce Brosnan) and his Knights of the Round Table, Kayley expressing to become a knight when he promises her a trip to the kingdom someday. However, a dark-hearted knight named Ruber (Gary Oldman) becomes upset at his share of the land's divisions and attacks Arthur with a mace to usurp him. The knights repel Ruber's attack, but Lionel is killed before King Arthur defeats Ruber with his sword Excalibur. Despite her father's death, Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig) grows into a young woman, dreaming of her chance to prove herself and become a knight like her father, much to her mother's chagrin who believes it to be too dangerous for her. Ten years later, a Griffin (Bronson Pinchot) breaks into Camelot and steals Arthur's sword, subsequently being attacked by Ayden (Frank Welker), a silver-winged falcon owned by Merlin. The resulting conflict causes the griffin to lose the sword in the Forbidden Forest as he escapes. Upon King Arthur learning from Merlin (John Gielgud) that Ayden has gone into the Forbidden Forest to look for Excalibur while having his wounds healed, he has a horn blown that notifies the lands that Excalibur has been stolen, falling on the ears of Kayley, vowing to find the sword, but Juliana refuses to let her go after the sword. Later, Ruber breaks into Julianna's home and kidnaps both Julianna and Kayley, plotting to use them to sneak into Camelot and overthrow Arthur by using a magic potion (which he obtained from some witches) which combines his soldiers and a chicken dubbed Bladebeak (Jaleel White) as a demonstration with various weapons and instruments of destruction. Kayley manages to escape and goes to the forest in search of the sword, Some of Ruber's henchmen and Bladebeak chase after her. But Kayley is soon saved by Garrett (Cary Elwes) who defeats the henchmen into his traps. She soon learns that Garrett is a blind hermit, who has learned the ways of the forest and survives with ease with the assistance of Ayden. Despite his initial objections, Garrett allows Kayley to help him recover Excalibur. Meanwhile, Bladebeak reports Ruber about Kayley joining Garrett and Ayden to find Excalibur, Ruber plans to follow them, hoping they will lead him and his henchman to the sword. Coming across Dragon Country, the pair meet a conjoined twin dragon; the sophisticated and intelligent Devon (Eric Idle), and the crude but loyal Cornwall (Don Rickles) who are bullied by the other dragons due to their smaller size and their inability to spit fire or fly. With their help, they manage to escape a dragon attack and a chase by Ruber who has caught up to them. Over the course of their adventure, Kayley teaches Garrett to rise above his pain from the past when she mentions Sir Lionel. Garrett tells her that long ago, He was once a stable boy who also dreamt of becoming a knight. But one night, a fire broke out in the stables, and Garrett who tries to rescue the horses, gets accidentally blinded by one of the horses, but Sir Lionel who felt sorry for him, trained him, giving Garrett faith and courage of what a knight should have. Garrett then goes into self-imposed exile from the kingdom after hearing about Sir Lionel's death, and began to live in the forest for the rest of his live. He demonstrates how he survives in the forest by knocking out an alive plant with Ayden's signals. The next day, they come across the belt of Excalibur in the footprints of a giant ogre. Knowing that the sword is nowhere to be found, Kayley's insistence on blaming Garrett about stopping for camping last night, causes him to miss Ayden's warning and he is injured by an arrow shot from Ruber's henchmen. Ruber and his party are delayed by moving trees, allowing the pair to escape. While tending to his wound, Kayley apologizes to Garrett for her scolding towards him which leads to his injury, but Garrett forgives her, and soon, Kayley and Garrett begin to fall in love as the magic of the forest heals him. The next morning, after they find the scabbard of the sword, they trail Excalibur to a giant Rock Ogre using it as a tooth pick they manage to steal back the sword use the ogre to again delay Ruber's attempts to overtake them. Exiting the forest with Excalibur, Garrett gives it to Kayley to turn in herself, no longer feeling a part of that world. He returns to the forest with Ayden and Kayley is captured moments later by Ruber and his thugs as she tries to go back for Garrett. Ruber takes the sword and uses his potion to meld Excalibur to his own arm and using Kayley as a bargaining chip, Ruber forces Julianna to gain them entry to Camelot. Devon and Cornwall inform Garrett of what has happened and he rushes to rescue her. Once inside Camelot, Bladebeak who has turned on Ruber, frees Kayley who goes to warn the knights causing Ruber to lead his henchmen to terrorise the kingdom and fight back the knights. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive and assist, Cornwall and Devon finally learning to work together find out how to fly and quickly turn the tide of the battle in their favor where they fight off the Griffin after rescuing Ayden from being attacked. Confronting Ruber who tries to kill an injured Arthur, Kayley and Garrett manage to defeat Ruber by tricking him into stabbing the sword into the enchanted stone from which it was pulled. The conflict of magic from the enchanted stone destroys Ruber, disintegrating him, and heals those injured in the fight as well as returning Ruber's minions, Bladebeak and Excalibur to normal. Cornwall and Devon are separated, but decide to rejoin in their reignited friendship. Afterwards upon drawing Excalibur out of the stone, King Arthur realizes that the strength of his kingdom is not in the strength of its king alone, but the strength of its people and he knights both Kayley and Garrett for their valor. Afterward, Kayley and Garrett dance at their knighting ceremony and share their first kiss, which signifies at a strong and close blossoming romantic relationship before they ride off on a horse with "Just Knighted" as a sign on the back as the pair of them ride off together. Cast * Jessalyn Gilsig as Kayley, an tomboyish young woman who dreams of becoming a knight. She inspires her dream from her late father who is a knight of the round table. She is the main protagonist of the film. Andrea Corr serves as her singing voice, and Sarah Freeman serves as Young Kayley's voice. * Cary Elwes as Garrett, an blind hermit who lives in solitude in the forbidden forest after losing his sight due to an accident in the stable fire, and the result of Sir Lionel's death. He is the deuteragonist of the film. Bryan White serves as Garrett's singing voice. * Gary Oldman as Ruber, an insane former knight of the round table, and the main antagonist of the film. He made his plan to seek his revenge of Arthur by stealing his sword: Excalibur, and blackmailing Julianna into helping him to access Camelot after threating to kill her daughter. He can merge henchmen into mechanical minions. * Eric Idle as Devon, an intellectual, and well-mannered dragon, and Don Rickles as Cornwall, an crude, but loyal dragon. They are both conjoined as an two headed dragon, and they are the tritagonists of the film. * Jane Seymour as Juliana, an widow of Sir Lionel and the mother of Kayley. She is worried about her daughter's safety after her husband's death, but gets over it at the end of the film when she defeats Ruber. Céline Dion serves as Juliana's singing voice. * Pierce Brosnan as King Arthur, the true king of Camelot, and a kind ruler. He was Ruber's main target for revenge. Steve Perry serves as King Arthur's singing voice. * Bronson Pinchot as Griffin, Ruber's pet. He minds his table manners, and his main enemy is Ayden, after the falcon caused the Griffin to lose Excalibur in the forest after stealing it. * Jaleel White as Bladebeak, an chicken that is merged with an axe by Ruber himself, he was made into this form as a demonstration to his henchmen. * Gabriel Byrne as Sir Lionel, Julianna's husband and Kayley's father, and one of Arthur's most loyal knights of the round table. He was killed by Ruber, minutes earlier in the beginning. * John Gielgud as Merlin, Arthur's advisor, and the owner of Ayden. * Frank Welker as Ayden, Merlin's legendary pet, and guides Garrett in the forbidden forest, and can speak in a language that Garrett can understand. Musical numbers # "United We Stand" - King Arthur and Knights # "On My Father's Wings" - Kayley # "Ruber" - Ruber # "The Prayer" - Juliana # "I Stand Alone" - Garrett # "If I Didn't Have You" - Devon and Cornwall # "Looking Through Your Eyes" - Garrett and Kayley # "I Stand Alone (Reprise)" - Garrett Production In May 1995, The Quest for the Grail was Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project, and the studio put the film into production before the story was finalized. Animators spent considerable downtime waiting for management to make up their minds. Bill Kroyer (FernGully: The Last Rainforest) was originally going to direct with his wife, Sue, producing, but creative differences forced the husband and wife team to leave the project in February 1997. Kenny Ortega served as the film's choreographer. CGI was used for a few scenes, such as to create the rock ogre. According to Kit Percy, head of CGI effects, the software they used was designed for use with live-action. Chrystal Klabunde, leading animator of Garrett, said in an article in Animation Magazine, "It was top heavy. All the executives were happily running around and playing executive, getting corner offices—but very few of them had any concept about animation at all, about doing an animated film. It never occurred to anybody at the top that they had to start from the bottom and build that up. The problems were really coming at the inexperience of everyone involved. Those were people from Disney that had the idea that you just said, 'Do it,' and it gets done. It never occurred to them that it got done because Disney had an infrastructure in place, working like clockwork. We didn't have that." Effects supervisor, Michel Gagné also said, "People were giving up. The head of layout was kicked out, the head of background, the executive producer, the producer, the director, the associate producer---all the heads rolled. It's kind of a hard environment to work in." Dalisa Cooper Cohen, producer of the film, said "We made this movie in a year, basically. That was a lot of the problem. We worked around the clock." Reportedly, "cost overruns and production nightmares" led the studio to "reconsider their commitment to feature animation."Filmmaker Brad Bird (who helmed The Iron Giant, Warner Bros. next animated film) thought that micromanaging, which he said had worked well for Disney but not for Warner Bros., had been part of the problem. Animators * Athanassios Vakalis - Kayley * Chrystal Klabunde - Garrett * Cynthia Overman - Juliana * Alexander Williams - Ruber * Dan Wagner - Devon and Cornwall * Stephen Franck - The Griffin and Bladebeak * Mike Nguyen - Ayden Promotion The film was heavily promoted by Wendy's, who offered themed Kid's meals that included toys and discounts on theater admission. Warner Bros. also teamed up with UNICEF to promote the home video release of the film by advertising trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived. Several posters of the film are featured in a movie theater in the season two episode "Innocence" of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The film was slated for a 1997 holiday season release, but was pushed to May 1998 to avoid competition with Anastasia, Flubber, The Fearless Four, Alien Resurrection, Titanic, and the re-release of The Little Mermaid/ Kids WB did promo spots for the film in May 1998. Reception On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a approval rating of 36% based on 22 reviews. It grossed $6,041,602 on its opening weekend and $22,510,798 during its theatrical run in North America. The studio lost about $40 million on the film. David Kronke of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "formulaic", and wrote that it was "a nearly perfect reflection of troubling trends in animated features", called Kayley "a standard-issue spunky female heroine", and said that "Garrett's blindness is the one adventurous element to the film, but even it seems calculated; his lack of sight is hardly debilitating, yet still provides kids a lesson in acceptance." Kevin J. Harty, editor of a collection of essays called Cinema Arthuriana, says that the film is "slightly indebted to, rather than, as Warner publicity claims, actually based on" Chapman's novel. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote "Coming on the heels of 20th Century Fox's lush but silly Anastasia (a much better film than this one), Quest for Camelot suggests that Disney still owns the artistic franchise on animated features." *The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: **2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: "The Prayer" – Nominated Box Office The film became an box office flop, but grossed more than the previous films made by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment, grossing nearly $23 million domestically. Soundtrack Game Boy Color game The video game was released in 1998 for Game Boy Color. Trivia *This film is rated G by the Motion Picture Association of America. *This film is released on May 15, the date of Frederik Du Chau's birthday. *This is one of the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment films to have the 75 years variant in the opening logo, but played silently. Gallery Category:Warner Bros. films Category:1998 films Category:Warner Bros. Feature Animation films Category:Warner Bros. Family Entertainment films Category:Quest for Camelot Category:Animated films Category:Warner Bros. animated films Category:Comedy films Category:Fantasy films Category:Adventure films Category:Drama films Category:Musical films Category:Animated musical films Category:Theatrical films Category:Arthurian films Category:British films Category:Films Category:Arthurian Legends